Films, fish oil feature in `antient' history of the Academy concert rooms and cinema

Planning approval for an office development on the site of the Academy cinema on Dublin's Pearse Street means that one of the capital's oldest and most distinguished performance spaces will be lost, at least for the foreseeable future.

Although the building, long known as the Antient Concert Rooms but more recently called the Academy cinema, had been closed for more than a decade, its conversion to offices must still be regretted. This is a part of Dublin, after all, which was once rich in theatres, since not far away stood both the Theatre Royal and the Queen's Royal Theatre, which were demolished in the 1960s - ironically, in both instances, to make way for office blocks.

While these two buildings were architecturally attractive and, for much of their existences, extremely popular with audiences, neither could match the Antient Concert Rooms, the age of which is surpassed only by the Rotunda Rooms at the top of O'Connell Street. The building on Pearse Street - originally Great Brunswick Street - has had a fascinating and complex history since it was constructed in 1824 to the designs of an unknown architect. The original owner of the property was the Dublin Oil Gas Station, established to extract gas from fish oil. This scheme had been devised by two gas engineers called Gosling and Taylor. None too surprisingly, this business went bankrupt in 1834 when the price of fish oil, previously very cheap, suddenly and rapidly increased.

In 1842 the site was acquired by the Society of Antient Concerts. Having adapted the interior into an 800-seat hall with a Telford organ, the society gave its first performance there on April 20th 1843, featuring extracts from Handel's Messiah. Thanks to their novelty and their location on the more fashionable south side of the Liffey, the rooms were an immediate success with the public and largely supplanted the position of the previously popular Rotunda Rooms. The association between this site and music was always strong; from 1848 and 1856, the Irish Academy of Music held classes here before acquiring both a Royal prefix and its own permanent premises on neighbouring Westland Row. Many famous performers appeared on stage at the Antient Concert Rooms, including singers Jenny Lind and Catherine Hayes, the violinist Joseph Joachim and pianist Anton Rubinstein. In the 1860s, the hall served as home to the Philharmonic Society of Dublin.

Later in the 19th century, the music teacher George John Vandeleur Lee staged his Amateur Musical Society concerts in the Antient Concert Rooms, where one of the best-known singers would be the mother of George Bernard Shaw; the latter also appeared on stage here, albeit as a speaker.

On the same occasion in late August 1904, two other young singers performed in the same venue: James Joyce and John McCormack. The Antient Concert Rooms features in Joyce's Dubliners (it is the setting for his story A Mother) and in Ulysses in which Bloom, strolling down the street, observes: "Antient Concert Rooms - nothing on there." The building is therefore just as important for its political and literary as for its musical associations. Parnell spoke from the stage here, as did Jack Lynch, and on the latter occasion it was observed that the auditorium's acoustics were so fine that no artificial amplification was required to allow the speaker be heard by every member of the audience.

In May 1899, despite widespread public protests, W B Yeats's The Countess Cathleen was staged in the Antient Concert Rooms, which thereby provided a birthplace for the Irish Literary Theatre, precursor of the Abbey Theatre. One other strange story connected with the site deserves to be remembered: a public auction held in the hall of the Antient Concert Rooms in 1899. Conducted by the long-established firm of James North, the lots offered for sale are said to have been the Lakes of Killarney and some 14,000 surrounding acres. They were withdrawn from auction after bidding reached only £50,000.

BY THE 1920s, the Antient Concert Rooms had begun to show films, although the premises still also played host to other performances and continued to have an orchestra pit. It was only 45 years ago that the building was completely adapt ed as a cinema, opening in April 1956 as the Embassy and later becoming the Academy, in which guise it remained until the late 1980s.

During the mid-1950s the most serious changes were made to the original facade, when a new canopied entrance was added to the ground floor and a balcony inserted into the hall's auditorium. Otherwise, the exterior remains that recorded in an engraving made soon after the building was first constructed in the 1820s. It stands two storeys high and seven bays wide, the three centre bays separated by pairs of granite pilasters. These support a relatively shallow pediment in the middle of which is sited a Diocletian window.

According to James Toomey, the architect responsible for the Antient Concert Rooms' conversion to offices on behalf of owners the Ward Anderson Group, the refurbishment will include a complete cleaning of the front with the pilasters and parapet, which are at present painted, stripped back to the stone.

Iron railings in the style of the original will also be reinstated. Internally, the auditorium's 20th century balcony will be taken out, plasterwork restored and a new free-standing mezzanine floor inserted so as not to interfere with the walls. A new office development, with parking for some 30 cars, will be located at the rear of the site. Mr Toomey insists that this addition will not rise higher than the existing facade and will therefore be invisible from the front of the building.